Failed Emissions Testing
Printed From: West Coast Fieros
Category: Technical Topics Forum
Forum Name: Technical Questions and Discussions
Forum Description: Got a technical question about your fiero? ask it here.
URL: http://www.westcoastfieros.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=65
Printed Date: 21 November 2024 at 7:20pm
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Topic: Failed Emissions Testing
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Subject: Failed Emissions Testing
Date Posted: 03 March 2007 at 5:34pm
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FRACK FRACK FRACK, and a double UGH to go along with it. Nox were normal, as a matter of fact everything was normal except the hydrocarbons which were off the scale. I was 10x max allowable and 50x the average. So ya it was really really high. John Craker thinks I must have a really bad injector issue. A bad O2 sensor would cause it to fail but not by this margin. Anyone else came across readings this whacked out before. I will post up a scan of the slip when I get home. ------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Replies:
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 03 March 2007 at 11:26pm
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The car has a cat. The EGR system does not work and is capped off at both ends of the EGR pipe. However it passed the NOX so I am not too worried about the EGR system. If anything the non functioning EGR should have caused the combustion chambers temp to be higher and reduced the high HC's. I am going to pull down the top end next weekend, do a compression test and injector swap out with a set from a friend. See if it makes any difference. Well here is the scan from the test today.
------------------ ------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Dr.Fiero
Date Posted: 04 March 2007 at 7:44am
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Little different than what you described to me on the phone - you said it failed ALL the HC tests! It's only idle you failed on though... Do that compression test before you do anything... |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 1:02pm
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I am going to change out the injectors and see if that helps, as well as do a cold start delete on it. ------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 07 March 2007 at 11:12am
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Well I started the tear down last night. Here is what I have found so far. When I went to bleed the fuel pressure from the schrader, there was zero pressure not even a tiny spurt of fuel came out. Hmm thats no good. Middle intake to lower intake bolts, 3 of them were loose enough that I could have removed them with my fingers. . Now for the best part. I knew I had a valve train tic when cold. This had been there since I bought it. So I was thinking of if I was going this far I might as well pull the valve covers and properly set up the valve lash. 6 out of 12 of the valve cover bolts were also loose. There are 12 rockers on a V6 2.8 Fiero engine. With the engine sitting in a static position, just where ever it stopped when I shut it off. 6 out of the 12 rockers had a small bit of slop enough to click back and fourth when wiggled. 2 more had at least .020 movement. Only 4 of them were tight, and I am betting those are only tight due to came lobe position. My best guess is the guy that did the engine swap. (engine was replaced with a new motor 40,000 miles ago) Set the valves as if if were a SBC with coarse valve stud threads. Probably went to zero lash and maybe put on 1/4 turn more. By the looks of it, he may not have even been at zero lash when he set them up. So a combination of valves not opening far enough and at least one leaky injector this could have been causing all my problems from the beginning. I am going to reset the valves, install a set of injectors from a fellow club member that just finished a 19# injector swap, and had passed air-care with his old injectors. 9Thank You Blair on the forum) Then put it all back together and see what happens. I can only work on it a few hours a day and even at that it is only for about half hour at a shot. So it is going to take me the better part of a week to do all this. ------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 13 March 2007 at 5:36pm
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Well update. I had it all apart and did a compression test, cylinder's 1-5 were 140-150 lbs across, cylinder 6 initially hit 120, then on 5 retests got a best of 70 and that was with 2 cap fulls of oil dumped directly down the intake port. The intake valve was not sealing. I backed the rocker off to the point that when the cam allowed the valve to close the push rod was sloppy. I smacked it with a hammer, I sprayed carb cleaner down it, I got the valve in the closed position and left carb cleaned down the intake port over night, it just would not seal. So today, I did the deed. I tore the entire top end off and pulled the heads. It is very obvious in the pics which cylinder was not firing. (hint its the one that still has the brass compression tester fitting in the plug hole) A big thanks to Blair for pushing me to remove the heads and Graeme for coming over today and practically standing over my shoulder telling me to "just do it" get it done. I was really not in the mood to work on the car today, but when your friend is standing there giving you crap about not doing it, you kinda got 2 choices, punch him or get off your butt and get to work. (both require about the same amount of work but only one would get me any progress) So the heads are off, I am going to tear them down and junk em. I have a spare set of good 2.8 heads here. I am probably going send them off to be checked for sure. The rest of the engine is in good shape. The cylinder walls are so fresh that you can still see the hash marks. There is no ridge at all. I tried to show that in the pic where I smeared around the oil. I have to get one of my manifolds ported. I have 6 sitting on a wall of which for some odd reason only one is ported, the others are stock. So I will get another spare one done. Maybe by next week I will have all the parts done and get this car back on the road. Will be nice to be able to park the V8 car and get some much needed tinkering done to it. I broke way to many parts racing it around all winter.
Bad Valves on #6 Good Cylinder Walls Old Heads Complete New Nice Heads Spare Manifolds ------------------
------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Graeme
Date Posted: 13 March 2007 at 11:55pm
Punching eh  that might have been funner  Good to see you made more progressive after I left. Looking forward to seeing that thing put back together and running. |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 14 March 2007 at 12:05am
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It was meant in the nicest overtone. :) Thanks again for all your moral support today. I don't think I would have got it done otherwise.
As for that last manifold. I found it, err rather got the call to tell me where it was. I forgot I gave it to Chris last summer to get welded up. It was still in his trunk where we left it. I ran over to his place tonight, we jumped in his truck and ran it down to the shop he opened up the shop special so we could fix it up. He has special tools that make it really easy to do stainless pipes. And seeing as he does stainless welding on a daily basis I knew he was the best person for the job un link most exhaust shops that weld on junk mild steel stuff. So a huge thanks to Chris for all his help today as well too. ------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Graeme
Date Posted: 14 March 2007 at 1:35am
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On a related and belated note, thanks to David for helping me out with my car. We've come to the conclusion that I have a bad thermometer and O2 sensor. Funny thing happened today after I got home late tonight.. while Dave and I were working on my car, we had taken the blue dingy thingy out because it was rather annoying. I didn't put it back in when I got home after all that, and happened to have left the parking lights on.. So when I got home late tonight (took a different vehicle out) the battery was completely dead in the fiero. Just when I thought that maybe taking the blue dingy thingy out might be a good idea  |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 14 March 2007 at 10:37am
Doh  Well its an easy plug back in deal.------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |
Posted By: Capt Fiero
Date Posted: 19 April 2007 at 5:28pm
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Well after a month of tinkering in my spare time, I put the finishing touches on the car today, bought a $33 day trip permit, put $50 worth of premium gas in it, drove it to the emissions testing station paid them there $23 for the test and crossed my fingers. The guy that did the test new I was terrified of it failing. (mainly from him hearing me go "please pass, please pass, just tell me it passed") So as he brought me the results he was kinda shaking his head and said I would need to re-test, then he paused and said "In another year" It PASSED. Fiero's are my only cars, I have my 88GT that is pretty much stock, and my 85GT that has the 4.9, I blew up the clutch in the V8 car so I had to get the 88GT on the road in a hurry. So I am very very happy it is running. The first drive with the new heads and ported manifolds was amazing. I can't believe how much a difference just a good set of heads and ported manifolds makes to an otherwise stock engine. (as far as I know the rest of the engine is stock) I have only owned the car for a bit over a year so who knows what was done in the last 20 years. The car revs better, has much improved throttle response and overall is more fun to drive than I remember it being. With only 95,000 miles on it, (157,000 kms) the car is still in pretty good shape as well. Well enough with the chatter here is the test that says I am legal for another year.  ------------- Capt Fiero 88 Fiero GT 5spd V6 Eight Fifty Seven GT V8 5spd. |